ON TURNING SIXTY

Today is my birthday. I am turning 60 years old.  I have been dreading this birthday...but, my best friends tell me I don't look or act 60. And, anyway, there is a certain status that comes with being 60, they say.

Lots of things have happened in my life-happy things, very sad things, very important things.  When I reflect on my life I am thankful for all that I have experienced, and in truth I wouldn't change much. The good thing about getting older is that you gain perspective on all those experiences-both good and bad. How and why I got from point A to point B has become clearer and clearer.

I have also had much good fortune in my life.  I married my high school sweetheart and have four amazing children. I have many wonderful friends. And, I have been blessed to work at something I love.

Fear might be my only regret.  In my 60 years on this planet I have learned that there is great value in being fearless. When I was younger I think I protected myself from situations and people because I was afraid to put myself out there. Now I have a sense of fearlessness and freedom I didn't have when I was younger.

I have had some wonderful birthday celebrations already, beginning in early December with a huge party in Chicago with all my Gannon siblings, continuing with dinners and lunches out with my family and friends, and culminating today with a special surprise from Kristin who took the day off from work to spend ALL DAY with her 'very old' Mom. With any luck this special treatment will continue throughout the month (:

SWANLIGHT

My gift for you in this blessed holiday season is this just-released poem by Irish poet and mystic, John O'Donahue. May it lift you up and carry you through to the glistening New Year.

"Swanlight

— John O’Donohue © 2001

If it could say itself January
Might brighten its syllables on the frost
Of these first New Year days whose cold is blue.

Meanwhile in this corner of its silence
A weak winter sun lowers down behind
The moor that rises away from the lake.

Beyond reach of light, the shadowed water
Succumbs to this darkening of spirit
That would deny the bog today’s twilight.

All of a sudden something else breaks through
To appear at the far end of the lake
In two diagrams of white, uneven light.

I have never seen white so absolute
And alone, glistening in awkward form
Dreaming across the water a bright path.

As it stirs and changes I see what it is:
Two swans have found the mirror in the lake
Where a V of horizon lets light through

To make them light-source and light-shape in one.
Now they swim and fade through windows of reed
And disrobe the lake of apparition.

I look and look into their vanishing
See nothing. Departing that perfect ground
I knew I had been hungry for a blessing."

MOLLY'S ENGAGED

Our youngest daughter, Molly, and her boyfriend, Lukas, are engaged! They are estatically happy....and it is infectious. We are all thrilled about their engagement and upcoming wedding.

So, we are in 'wedding planning' mode here. Our conversations now are all about wedding ceremonies, venue locations, guest lists, 'Save The Date' cards, engagement photographs, etc. etc. etc.

How different wedding planning is now then it was thirty-seven years ago when Tom and I got married. We choose a date in October (3 months after we got engaged) that didn't compete with an opening hunting season (seriously), went and talked to the priest we wanted to marry us to make sure he was available that day, booked the church, and began our preparations.  We asked a friend who owned a restaurant if he would do a pig roast in the park near our home for our reception. I made our wedding invitations and sent them; bought an ivory colored dress from my favorite department store. We wrote our vows. When our wedding day came, we were ready.  It was a very simple affair: a big picnic shared with family and friends under a canopy of crimson and gold colored trees. A magical day.

Molly's wedding will be much different then mine. She (and I) will work on her wedding for almost a year. There will be details upon details upon details to work out.

And, I know that Molly and Lukas' wedding day will also be incredibly magical. It couldn't help but be anything else......but, it makes me laugh to think how different our journeys will have been to get to the same place. (:

THE DARK MAGIC OF ALL HALLOWS EVE

Samhain, All Hallos Eve, Halloween, Dia de los Muertos (which falls on October 31st) is deep Autumn. Crispy-cold evenings with leaves blowing underfoot and the smell of woodsmoke. Long dark nights with clouds scattering overhead. Chilly mornings that lift damp fingers to a veiled sun.

Samhain is a time of change-for letting go of the old and making way for the new. For many who practice earth-based traditions, it is the turning point of the year, the dark half of the wheel, a time to reach through the veil and communicate with the otherworld.

It is a time for going within to the darkness, into our shadows, and meeting ourselves and those who have gone before....remembering that death is just a phase of our journey.

To celebrate this magical season, we carve jack-o-lanterns and make pumpkin bread from our garden pumpkins. We decorate our home with dried leaves, apples,  pumpkins, Indian Corn, masks, and witches (lots of witches)! We burn spicy-scented candles and take time for reflection in their flickering light.

In honor of Samhain/Halloween, Kristin and I have created this dark and magical Gypsy Doll:


Come with me All Hallow's night
We'll frighten everyone in sight
Such pranks for once, are justified
And fun and frolic amplified. -19th Century Halloween postcard 


'The Vampire' is made of salvaged, recycled, tattered fabrics, textiles, laces, ribbons, jewels, beads, buttons, shells, crystals, furs, feathers, twigs and stones. His face is hand formed, hand painted polymer clay.

* He is approximately 14” L

* He is an original, one-of-a-kind, dated and signed.

MABON APPROACHES

As a child I understood the season changes through the portends of nature....the black and orange fuzz of a wooly bear caterpillar foretold the nearness of Halloween, and legend had it that the thickness of her coat foretold how cold the upcoming winter would be. Apple picking meant the end of summer and the beginning of crisp, sweet Autumn. To this day, Fall remains my favorite season. And, I now also know this season-shifting time as 'Mabon', or The Autumn Equinox.

 'Mea'n Fo mhair' (which is what the Druids called Mabon), honors the Green Man, God of the Forest. Offerings of libations to the trees in the way of cidars, wines, herbs and fertilizers are appropriate at this time. 

At Mabon the light and dark once again sit facing each other with equal sway. The coolness of the darkness has come to soothe our sun-drenched brows, but we have not yet descended into the dark half of the year. Here in Wisconsin, we are nearing our first frost, but, the days are still balmy and pleasant; yet on the wind I can smell Autumn.

There is something quite alive about Autumn, even though it marks the first 'deaths' as the tilt of the earth takes the northern hemisphere away from the sun. The summer dogs days have passed and it is time to snuggle in, in preparation for winter's coming chill.

In honor of Autumn and the coming harvest season, we have created 'Mabon'.


"Under the harvest moon, 
When the soft silver 
Drips shimmering 
Over the garden nights, 
Death, the gray mocker, 
Comes and whispers to you 
As a beautiful friend 
Who remembers."
- Carl Sandburg, Under the Harvest Moon


'Mabon' is made of salvaged, recycled, tattered fabrics, textiles, laces, ribbons, jewels, beads, buttons, furs, feathers, twigs and stones. Her face is hand formed, hand painted polymer clay.

* She is approximately 14” L 

* She is an original, one-of-a-kind, dated and signed.

FABULOUS FLEA MARKET FINDS

Kristin and I loaded up my little volkswagon beetle with Spirit Dolls this week and hit the road on a selling trip. We headed toward Northern Wisconsin's tourist destinations-stopping at little out of the way galleries. We had an amazingly profitable trip! Not only did we sell our Spirit Dolls, but we met some funky shop owners (now new friends); AND along the way we found a quaint antique shop where we bargained for a gigunda box of twisted-up junk jewelry-which we got for a pittance! All it took to uncover our vast treasure was some time and patience for de-tangling.

It was an all around grand adventure.

ITSY BITSY TEENIE WEENIE YELLOW POLKA DOT BIKINI

The color of buttercups and lemons...my choice of a color theme for summer is YELLOW. Yellow is a vivacious color : energizing in the kitchen and warm in the bedroom-especially when it is drenched in morning sunlight. Yellow is a sophisticated color when paired with white, and dynamic when finished with black edges.

Whether it be amber, butter, mustard, ochre, or saffron, for me, yellow always evokes a sense of pure joy and memories of long, lazy, sunny summer days.